DUDES. I finished the damned story. 2200 words tonight, nearly seven thousand words total.

I now definitely need betas. Will send to Anne and Ginger and I know Bev wants, and Susan. Also Nilly?

I'm now about 35% of the way through the Lucy rewrite. I just finished editing a chapter that just needed minor tweaking to get rid of a now-nonexistent character, and now I'm printing out 20 pages from the grand ball scene to be recast into James's POV while keeping most of the dialogue and action intact.

Damn, it feels good to be back in rhythm on this, after spending the entire month between the writers conference and the election fighting block.

Whoops! I'm earwormed now.

Damn, it feels good to be a writer....

I know nothing about architecture.

I adore architecture! I've got oodles of books on it, and I especially love Tudor/Elizabethan. Priests holes and the slighting of battlements--no, that's Civil War era--and the transition from defensible castles to liveable palaces, the High Table and screens passages--

Um, sorry. Buildings are neat.

connie, I agree, they are - but the details I don't know anything about are the "what precisely would the foundation of a small (eight to ten rooms) manor house along the River Thames have been constructed of in the 16th century? How deep would they have to set it, to deal with the clay content? Would it meet today's code?"

That kind of level of detail. I spent two weeks on basic Victorian playhouse design to get the right flavour in FFoSM, and this one's going to be even more intensive.

"what precisely would the foundation of a small (eight to ten rooms) manor house along the River Thames have been constructed of in the 16th century? How deep would they have to set it, to deal with the clay content? Would it meet today's code?"

New construction or on the site of something medieval? Converted monastery after the Great Schism?

t Where's my "Medieval English Domestic Architecture" book.

Hmm. Just wrote two pages with James reacting to seeing Lucy just before the ball that's one of my set pieces. It's either the hottest thing I've ever written, or it's even more purple than the crowd at the Homecoming Game at Husky Stadium. I wonder how long it'll take me to objectively judge.

connie, the idea is that Tamsin, Penny's insanely wealthy new SIL, wants a "reproduction" Tudor manor house, using as many (or as close) to the original materials the Tudor architects would have used as possible.

It's not on the site of an original structure; Penny's brother Stephen owns this patch of land on the Isle of Dogs. It's actually on the site of a small dock where Henry VIII would have docked his pleasure boats when he came across from Placentia, his palace at Greenwich just arcross the river, for a day's hunting with his dogs.

Susan, purple prose is our friend.

Susan, purple prose is our friend.

Well, there is a fine line between the romantic and/or sexy and the overwrought and overblown. I don't want to write anything that'll amuse more than arouse, and tempt my readers to do dramatic readings of the love scenes to the amusement of their friends, as I t cough have been known to do myself (see LA F2F).

Know the feeling, Susan. Damn, Deb, this whole project is like another education...I'm awaiting books on private investigation as I type this. Hope this education pays off better than the last one.

erika, at least this one will be fun.